Dear reader! You can see a scientific electronic journal "Neftegazovaya Geologiya. Teoriya I Praktika". The Founder and Editorial Board, which consist of well-known Russian and foreign scientists and experienced professionals, have decided to create the first Russian edition in the new electronic format in spite of the abundance of printed editions in the field of petroleum geology.
Several reasons have prompted us to come forward with this initiative. We can see the urgent character of the issues of oil and gas resources development in the country and in the world; and these issues are becoming more and more relevant as oil and gas production grows. After some period of recession the interest of the government and gas companies in the development of science has been renewed, the need for prompt exchange of information and research results among scientists is increasing. Meanwhile, the majority of printed special editions is now over-filled with advertising and is so expensive that they have become inaccessible for most researchers and professionals. The number of printed editions with similar subject areas is being increased, while the circulation is usually has the opposite trend. In this view, the accumulation, storage and usage of printed editions have become a problem even for large companies and organizations, not to mention particular readers.
We have preferred the new format - the electronic open-access journal, believing that modern engineer, scientist, and manager are competent computer users and have free access to the Internet. The ease of use and storage of the new journal are obvious. However, the main advantages are the fast information delivery and accessibility. It is always on hand in your computer.
I am convinced that modern readers will appreciate the advantages of the new format.

Editor-in-Chief E.M. Khalimov /2006-2014/

Goals
- Creation of open-access scientific electronic journal in the field of petroleum geology.
- Introduction into the scientific environment in order to improve the efficiency of scientific research.
- High level of scientific publications.

Objectives
- Research: Promoting deep and comprehensive study of articles, testing of innovations, resulting from scientific research.
- Education: Support of higher education by providing open access to scientific articles.
- Information: Providing information for different categories of users in different fields of petroleum geology and environmental economics.

Uniqueness
The journal "Neftegazovaya Geologiya. Teoriya I Praktika" is the only academic electronic journal in the field of petroleum geology, registered as a mass media,
the founder and publisher of which is the research institute - one of the Russian centers of scientific support for exploration, initiatiator of new research trends and methodological developments in the field
of petroleum geology.

Open Access statement
Journal "Neftegazovaya Geologiya. Teoriya I Praktika" is an Open Access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Charges
The journal does not have article processing charges or submission charges. Submission and publication of articles are free of charge.

License terms
- Attribution;
- No Commercial Usage;
- No Derivatives.

Review procedure
The journal "Neftegazovaya Geologiya. Teoriya I Praktika" is commited to fair "double blind" peer-review of all articles in order to prevent any actual or potential conflict of interests between review personnel and authors of reviewed material.
The peer-review process of the journal consists of three stages.
The first stage of the peer-review process is a single-blind peer review by at least one referee, who is expert in the article's topic and awarded PhD degree. The second stage of the peer-review process is consideration by the person who is responsible for the section of the journal, in which article is submitted for. The third stage of the peer-review process is consideration by Editorial Board members.
A detailed description of the review procedure is presented in the Journal Statement.

Publication Ethics
The journal "Neftegazovaya Geologiya. Teoriya I Praktika" upholds the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all possible measures to prevent any publication malpractices.
All articles are considered without prejudice, in spite of national, racial, and religious affiliation, as well as the status or place of work of the author.
Articles submitted for publication must contain information that have not been printed before, represent authors' contributions and have not been copied or plagiarized in whole or in part from other publications.
All articles are downloaded in the internet service 'AntiPlagiat' in order to check their originality and prevent copying or plagiarism from public network sources.
All articles submitted for publication should not contain scientific and technical data relating to state, military or commercial secrecy. Authors should provide official document by the organization they work for
with expert opinion on the possibility of publication. This document confirms that article presented by author does not contain scientific and technical data relating to state, military or commercial secrecy.

Copyrights
Authors who publish articles in the journal retain their copyrights and grant the journal the right to publish the work for the first time, which after 6 months after publication is automatically licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to distribute this work with the mandatory preservation of references to authors of the original work and the original publication in the journal.